When Michael and Mina acquire what seem to be virtual wings, those wings take on a symbolic resonance, as spiritual badges not unlike the wings of the angel Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life, or on a different level, as signifiers of the onset of puberty.

“There’s no end to evolution,” she comments at another point. “Truth and dreams are always getting muddled,” Mina asserts at one point. Skellig is to some extent plot-driven and suspenseful - who is this funny man who eats mice and has wings? - but carries with it a good deal of emotional and philosophical baggage. My Name is Mina ends just as Michael and his family move into the house with the garage and Michael and Mina are about to make each other’s acquaintance. To cap her argument she quotes William Blake: “How can a bird that is born for joy sit in a cage and sing?”Įvents moderate her views to a certain extent, but this remains the basic strain of the novel, a “prequel” to David Almond’s bestselling Skellig, in which Mina and a boy named Michael join forces to assist a mysterious, hybrid human owl lurking in Michael’s family’s garage.

“Schools inhibit the natural intelligence, curiosity and creativity of children,” she informs two school officials. not quite a children’s book and not quite a young adult novel - is a highly precocious nine-year-old English girl who has a grievance against society and against the school system, in particular.

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My name is mina book